Search Results (622)

Energy Communities (ECs) are aggregations of users that cooperate to achieve economic benefits by sharing energy instead of operating individually in the so-called “disagreement” case. As there is no unique notion of fairness for the cost/profit allocation of ECs, this paper aims to identify an allocation method that allows for an appropriate weighting of both the interests of an EC as a whole and those of all its members. The novelty is in comparing different optimization approaches and cooperative allocation criteria, satisfying different notions of fairness, to assess which one may be best suited for an EC. Thus, a cooperative model is used to optimize the operation of an EC that includes two consumers and two solar PV prosumers. The model is solved by the “Social Welfare” approach to maximizing the total “incremental” economic benefit (i.e., cost saving and/or profit increase) and by the “Nash Bargaining” approach to simultaneously maximize the total and individual incremental economic benefits, with respect to the “disagreement” case. Since the “Social Welfare” approach could lead to an unbalanced benefit distribution, the Shapley value and Nucleolus criteria are applied to re-distribute the total incremental economic benefit, leading to higher annual cost savings for consumers with lower electricity demand. Compared to “Social Welfare” without re-distribution, the Nash Bargaining distributes 39–49% and 9–17% higher annual cost savings to consumers with lower demand and to prosumers promoting the energy sharing within the EC, respectively. However, total annual cost savings drop by a maximum of 5.5%, which is the “Price of Fairness”. Full article

The cyber–physical systems (CPSs) of various stakeholders from the mobility, logistics, and security sectors are needed to enable smart and secure situational awareness operations in a port environment. The motivation for this research arises from the challenges caused by some unexpected events, such as accidents, in such a multi-stakeholder critical environment. Due to the scale, complexity, and cost and safety challenges, a simulation-based approach was selected as the basis for the study. Prototype-level experimental solutions for dataspaces for secure data sharing and visualization of situational awareness were developed. The secure data-sharing solution relies on the application of verifiable credentials (VCs) to ensure that data consumers have the required access rights to the data/information shared by the data prosumer. A 3D virtual digital twin model is applied for visualizing situational awareness for people in the port. The solutions were evaluated in a simulation-based execution of an accident scenario where a forklift catches fire while loading a docked ship in a port environment. The simulation-based approach and the provided solutions proved to be practical and enabled the smooth study of disaster-type situations. The realized concept of dataspaces is successfully applied here for both daily routine operations and information sharing during accidents in the simulation-based environment. During the evaluation, needs for future research related to perception, comprehension, projection, trust, and security as well as performance and quality of experience were detected. Especially, distributed and secure viewpoints of objects and stakeholders toward real-time situational awareness seem to require further studies. Full article

Efficient sizing and economic analysis of community battery systems is crucial for enhancing energy efficiency and sustainability in rooftop PV panel-rich communities. This paper proposes a comprehensive model that integrates key technical and economic factors to optimize the size and operation of the prosumer-owned battery, maximizing the financial returns over the life span of the battery. Sensitivity and uncertainty analyses were also conducted on a number of factors that are constantly changing over the years such as per-unit cost of the battery and interest rate. Monte Carlo simulations were utilized to replicate the unpredictable PV generations and the volatility of house load demands. The developed model is evaluated under three scenarios: a shared community battery for all houses, individual batteries for each house, and a combined system with an additional large load. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is utilized to maximize the formulated objective function subject to the considered constraints. The findings indicate that integrating community batteries offered a substantial economic advantage compared to individual home batteries. The additional revenue stream of incorporating larger consumers looking to reduce their carbon footprint (e.g., commercial) returned a further augmented net present value (NPV). The influence of different tariff structures was also assessed and it was found that critical peak pricing (CPP) was the most prolific. The outcomes offer valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders in the energy sector to facilitate a more sustainable future. Full article

The growing number of renewable energy communities (RECs) exemplifies the potential of citizen-driven actions towards a more sustainable future. However, obtaining hourly measured consumption data from REC members remains challenging, hindering accurate feasibility studies for the development of communities. This study examines the impact of estimating hourly consumption from aggregated data on REC analysis results. A case study with real consumption data from diverse users, representative of a typical community in Tuscany, Italy, was analysed to investigate various influencing factors. Multiple scenarios were simulated: two open-source tools estimated energy production from the community’s PV plants, and two REC configurations were considered—one with consumers and prosumers and another with consumers and a producer (with the same total installed power). Additionally, three locations were evaluated to consider the importance of geographical positioning. The study revealed that the impact of consumption data aggregation is more significant in scenarios with low energy sharing, such as the scenario where prosumers were replaced with a producer. Geographical positioning showed no major discrepancies in energy and economic outcomes, implying that using estimated hourly consumption data from aggregated data has a relevant impact regardless of location. Furthermore, different weather files did not affect the impact of aggregated consumption data. Full article

This paper investigates optimising battery energy storage systems (BESSs) to enhance the business models of Local Energy Markets (LEMs). LEMs are decentralised energy ecosystems facilitating peer-to-peer energy trading among consumers, producers, and prosumers. By incentivising local energy exchange and balancing supply and demand, LEMs contribute to grid resilience and sustainability. This study proposes a novel approach to BESS optimisation, utilising advanced artificial intelligence techniques, such as multilayer perceptron neural networks and extreme gradient boosting regressors. These models accurately forecast energy consumption and optimise BESS reserve allocation within the LEM framework. The findings demonstrate the potential of these AI-driven strategies to improve the BESS reserve capacity setting. This optimal setting will target meeting Energy Community site owners’ needs and avoiding fines from the distribution system operator for not meeting contract conditions. Full article

The European Union has established ambitious targets for lowering carbon dioxide emissions in the residential sector, aiming for all new buildings to be “zero-emission” by 2030. Integrating solar generators with hydrogen storage systems is emerging as a viable solution for achieving these goals in homes. This paper introduces a linear programming optimization algorithm aimed at improving the installation capacity of residential solar–hydrogen systems, which also utilize waste heat recovery from electrolyzers and fuel cells to increase the overall efficiency of the system. Analyzing six European cities with diverse climate conditions, our techno-economic assessments show that optimized configurations of these systems can lead to significant net present cost savings for electricity and heat over a 20-year period, with potential savings up to EUR 63,000, which amounts to a 26% cost reduction, especially in Southern Europe due to its abundant solar resources. Furthermore, these systems enhance sustainability and viability in the residential sector by significantly reducing carbon emissions. Our study does not account for the potential economic benefits from EU subsidies. Instead, we propose a novel incentive policy that allows owners of solar–hydrogen systems to inject up to 20% of their total solar power output directly into the grid, bypassing hydrogen storage. This strategy provides two key advantages: first, it enables owners to profit by selling the excess photovoltaic power during peak midday hours, rather than curtailing production; second, it facilitates a reduction in the size—and therefore cost—of the electrolyzer. Full article

The emergence of prosumers, who actively participate in designing and producing goods, has generated a growing interest in homemade products. Factors such as design methods, component reuse, or digital fabrication empower prosumer designers to realize their ideas. Although there are cases of bioinspired products manufactured by prosumers, the interactions between bioinspired design methods in the prosumer field have not been addressed from an academic point of view. This article presents a case that combines bioinspired design methods with prosumer characteristics from the perspective of a designer who uses biological research results whilst acting as a prosumer. The proposal is to see whether working on a small scale, without the need for biomimetics experts, and independently, as a prosumer, is feasible and valuable. As a result, a bicycle flashlight is designed with a microgenerator bioinspired by the geometry of samara seeds, and is tested in a wind tunnel. This case shows that the integration of a bioinspired design in prosumer contexts poses unique challenges and requires a multidisciplinary approach. Furthermore, the application of a bioinspired approach in this case has not only provided a certain level of novelty to the final product, but has also improved its efficiency and reduced its financial expenditure. Full article

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) energy trading is a new financial mechanism that can be adopted to incentivize the development of distributed energy resources (DERs), by promoting the selling of excess energy to other peers on the network at a negotiated rate. Current incentive programs, such as net metering (NEM) and Feed-in-Tariff (FiT), operate according to a centralized policy framework, where energy is only traded with the utility, the state-owned grid authority, the service provider, or the power generation/distribution company, who also have the upper hand in deciding on the rates for buying the excess energy. This study presents a comparative analysis of three energy trading mechanisms, P2P energy trading, NEM, and FiT, within a rural microgrid consisting of two prosumers and four consumers. The microgrid serves as a practical testbed for evaluating the economic impacts of these mechanisms, through simulations considering various factors such as energy demand, production variability, and energy rates, and using key metrics such as economic savings, annual energy bill, and wasted excess energy. Results indicate that while net metering and FiT offer stable financial returns for prosumers, P2P trading demonstrates superior flexibility and potentially higher economic benefits for both prosumers and consumers by aligning energy trading with real-time market conditions. The findings offer valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders seeking to optimize rural energy systems through innovative trading mechanisms. Full article

In recent years, the concept of the prosumer has garnered extensive attention across various fields, including marketing, energy consumption, and innovation research. This attention is driven by the significant role prosumers play in developing more efficient, sustainable, and health-conscious market systems, propelled by advancements in social and technological domains. Broadly defined, a prosumer is an individual who acts as both a producer and a consumer. Originally coined by Toffler in the 1980s, the term describes individuals who blur the lines between producers and consumers by engaging in the creation of value for their own use or for others. Prosumers are seen as external partners who participate in co-creation processes with organizations, contributing to innovative outcomes and the production of the products and services they consume. The concept of the prosumer, individuals who simultaneously act as producers and consumers, has gained significant attention across various sectors. This entry explores the evolving role and impact of prosumers on sustainability, innovation, and market dynamics. A comprehensive literature review and empirical analysis were conducted to understand prosumer behavior and contributions. The findings reveal that the prosumers’ roles range from significantly enhancing sustainability by generating renewable energy to promoting personalized education via teacher–prosumer models. They also drive technological advancements in fields such as 3D printing and cryptocurrency. The study concludes that prosumers have the potential to foster a more resilient and inclusive economy, although challenges such as regulatory barriers and technological dependencies must be addressed to fully leverage their contributions. Full article

The growing adoption of behind-the-meter (BTM) photovoltaic (PV) systems, electric vehicle (EV) home chargers, and heat pumps (HPs) is causing increased grid congestion issues, particularly in power distribution grids. Leveraging BTM prosumer flexibility offers a cost-effective and readily available solution to address these issues without resorting to expensive and time-consuming infrastructure upgrades. This work evaluated the effectiveness of this solution by introducing a novel modeling framework that combines a rolling horizon (RH) optimal power flow (OPF) algorithm with a customized piecewise linear cost function. This framework allows for the individual control of flexible BTM assets through various control measures, while modeling the power flow (PF) and accounting for grid constraints. We demonstrated the practical utility of the proposed framework in an exemplary residential region in Schutterwald, Germany. To this end, we constructed a PF-ready grid model for the region, geographically allocated a future BTM asset mix, and generated tailored load and generation profiles for each household. We found that BTM storage systems optimized for self-consumption can fully resolve feed-in violations at HV/MV stations but only mitigate 35% of the future load violations. Implementing additional control measures is key for addressing the remaining load violations. While curative measures, e.g., temporarily limiting EV charging or HP usage, have minimal impacts, proactive measures that control both the charging and discharging of BTM storage systems can effectively address the remaining load violations, even for grids that are already operating at or near full capacity. Full article

The energy sector’s long-term sustainability increasingly relies on widespread renewable energy generation. Shared energy storage embodies sharing economy principles within the storage industry. This approach allows storage facilities to monetize unused capacity by offering it to users, generating additional revenue for providers, and supporting renewable energy prosumers’ growth. However, high investment costs and long payback periods often hinder the development of battery storage. To address this challenge, we propose a shared storage investment framework. In this framework, a storage investor virtualizes physical storage equipment, enabling prosumers to access storage services as though they owned the batteries themselves. We adopt a cooperative game approach to incorporate storage sharing into the design phase of energy systems. To ensure a fair distribution of cooperative benefits, we introduce a benefit allocation mechanism based on contributions to energy storage sharing. Utilizing realistic data from three buildings, our simulations demonstrate that the shared storage mechanism creates a win–win situation for all participants. It also enhances the self-sufficiency and self-consumption of renewable energy. This paper provides valuable insights for shared storage investors regarding optimal design and benefit allocation among multiple stakeholders. Full article

Monetary markets serve as established resource allocation mechanisms, typically achieving efficient solutions with limited information. However, they are susceptible to market failures, particularly under the presence of public goods, externalities, or inequality of economic power. Moreover, in many resource-allocating contexts, money faces social, ethical, and legal constraints. Consequently, artificial currencies and non-monetary markets are increasingly explored, with Karma emerging as a notable concept. Karma, a non-tradeable, resource-inherent currency for prosumer resources, operates on the principles of contribution and consumption of specific resources. It embodies fairness, near incentive compatibility, Pareto-efficiency, robustness to population heterogeneity, and can incentivize a reduction in resource scarcity. The literature on Karma is scattered across disciplines, varies in scope, and lacks conceptual clarity and coherence. Thus, this study undertakes a comprehensive review of the Karma mechanism, systematically comparing its resource allocation applications and elucidating overlooked mechanism design elements. Through a systematic mapping study, this review situates Karma within its literature context, offers a structured design parameter framework, and develops a road map for future research directions. Full article

Renewable energy communities foster the users’ engagement in the energy transition, paving the way to the integration of distributed renewable energy sources. So far, the scientific literature has focused on residential users in energy communities, thus overlooking the opportunities for industrial and commercial members. This paper seeks to bridge this gap by extending the analysis to the role of non-residential users. The proposed methodology develops an effective clustering approach targeted to actual non-residential consumption profiles. It is based on the k-means algorithm and statistical characterization based on relevant probability density function curves. The employed clusterization procedure allows for effectively reducing a sample of 49 real industrial load profiles up to 11 typical consumption curves, whilst capturing all the relevant characteristics of the initial population. Furthermore, a peer-to-peer sharing strategy is developed accounting for distributed and shared storage. Three scenarios are considered to validate the model with different shares of non-residential users, and the results are then evaluated by means of shared energy, self-consumption, and self-sufficiency indices. Moreover, the results show that the integration of a large non-residential prosumer in a REC may increase the self-sufficiency of residential members by 8.2%, self-consumption by 4.4%, and the overall shared energy by 37.3%. Therefore, the residential community consistently benefits from the presence of non-residential users, with larger users inducing more pronounced effects. Full article

The behavior and reactions of prosumers play a key role in the development of sustainable energy and green transformation, as it is the result of their individual decisions that determines the scope of use of renewable energy sources. For these reasons, the main goal of this article is to determine whether and to what extent autarky influenced prosumers’ decisions about the use of solar energy in households, and which promotional channels play the most important role in these decisions. An assessment of the role of autarky and promotion from the prosumer perspective on the photovoltaics market is carried out on the example of Poland as a developing economy, based on the dominant share of coal in energy production. The implementation of this goal will enable recognition and better understanding of prosumers’ intentions and attitudes, and thus more effective stimulation of the green transformation. Surveys in this area were carried out on a representative sample of 754 Polish prosumers, and were analyzed using descriptive statistics and non-parametric statistical tests. The obtained results demonstrate a strong need for energy independence among prosumers (50%) and confirm the role of this motive in the green transformation process. Respondents consider the Internet (a score of 3.8793 on a 5-point suitability scale) and information from companies installing photovoltaic installations (a score of 3.6645 on a 5-point suitability scale) to be the most effective sources of promoting photovoltaics. The example and opinion of family and friends are also important to them. Government campaigns (a score of 2.8647 on a 5-point suitability scale), television and the press play a much smaller role in the popularization of solar energy. Respondents, therefore, prefer numerous and dispersed marketing sources, that allow them to confront and verify the information obtained. Full article

The shortage of efficient, low-cost storage depots inhibits the large-scale adoption of volatile-by-nature, renewable sources of energy (RSEs). In this paper, we outline how to utilize prosumer-owned hydro plants of a few to several kW as a distributed, short-term energy storage solution that is deployable with little investment and a low operational expenditure. The proposed solution is a system of interconnected hydro depots with an active water-flow control algorithm that reduces the grid’s load variability and benefits prosumers. According to the tests conducted, prosumer revenue grows from several percent to over 30 percent, depending on weather conditions, in comparison to the free-flow case. In turn, the cushioning effect of the distributed energy buffer balances the fluctuations introduced by other RSEs, e.g., photovoltaic- or wind-based ones. Hence, while benefitting the involved parties, it also facilitates the inclusion of RSEs within the power distribution system. Full article